The Grasshopper
by APennyForYourThought
Summary: I should be as gentle as a lamb... The room is pitch black. And off the bleak walls echo the words, “I...can not...love you!”


**A/N: Tis not very good, I warn ye. :( I may find time to edit it later on, but for now I simply wanted to see what it would be like to write something like this. If you can review, I thank you profoundly. I'd kill for some critique (you've got plenty to work with here).**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera, but I DO have three hundred bucks in birthday money. :D**

The Grasshopper

Metal looked so attractive in weak candlelight. Japanese bronze, smooth and free of dust in its ebony cage. The antennae sparkled; the tiny hairs on the animal's feet glowed. Broad strokes of pale gold had been swept across the wings. A sheen had been added to its large, ugly eyes, while its rear legs protruded upwards from its body. It was poised to spread its bronze wings and hop.

The ache in her neck was growing fiercer, begging for her to raise her bowed head. Ink trails of darkness ran down the walls and pooled around her feet. Soon, it would reach the level of her waist, then her chin, then past her head-

Soon, the despair would drown her.

"The scorpion...is the one? You say it is the one to turn, so the gunpowder is soaked?"

From underneath her eyelashes she could make out the twin yellow flames, saw them dance from side to side. They bobbed downwards once, with an air of suppressed eagerness.

"And the grasshopper will light the barrels." She began to weep again. The sound rose and fell, floating around the room. The flames came closer, surging forward until she winced in the light. She could not grow warm in front of this fire.

"Do you swear to me, that it is the grasshopper and not the scorpion that lights the powder? You would not lie to me?"

"_You believe Erik would commit such a sin as to lie?"_

Clasping her hands and at last raising her head to the black ceiling, she muttered, "Oh God! My God! I am a selfish woman! A quarter of Paris!"

"_Is marrying Erik so terrible? Oh Christine, Christine! Is it so hard to love me?"_

She twisted her neck, turned her head away from the eyes. The words came out unbidden.

"There is nothing to love."

She let the tears run out from under closed eyelids, and she did not hide them. His burning eyes illuminated the drops, turning them into liquid gold.

"There is nothing to love, Erik. You torture and murder, and the love you force out-"

Yet these rash words are delivered in such a strong and clear voice...!

"-will not be the love of a wife!" Her thrashing fists fell on empty air, and the tears came out faster. "You are a poor, unhappy, empty man. But I can not love you. You may pray for it to rain, but it will not, because there are no clouds! I have no love left in me any more. Erik, listen to me: I can not love you!"

The echo lasts only a few brief seconds.

"_Christine..."_

A pale and skeletal hand reached out, into the circle of light that they shared. His nails clicked and tapped against the bronze creatures, both frozen in their pose of readiness. Click, click. Click, click.

"_Mademoiselle has not touched the scorpion... Mademoiselle has not touched the grasshopper... It is eleven o'clock..."_

"My God, forgive me!"

The flames surged forward abruptly, the spears of light blinding her. A cold hand hovered near her cheek, and the voice of Death breathed in her ear, _"Reflect on this, my dear: there will be no one to write our requiems."_

She sat up straight, staring ahead. She allowed the icy knuckles to brush her skin, unflinchingly.

"_The grasshopper does not only turn, it hops jolly high! It needs no signal to act, other than a touch of the hand! A mere brush of the fingertips on its little wings!"_

She prayed for the terrible voice to stop.

_"I will turn it, mademoiselle!"_

Her left hand flew out, fingers outspread as if to stop the monster's movement.

The light in the room dimmed a bit; the monster was looking at her through narrowed eyes. He gave a rasping chuckle. "_You are reconsidering, my dear-?"_

The little hand, skin so soft and white, slammed down. Christine Daae closed her hand convulsively into a fist, wrist bent, fingers stabbing between the grasshopper's legs.

A split second faster than Erik's, in fact.


End file.
